The Fantastic Kent Cummins

Kent Cummins has been very busy the last eighty years. The word boredom does not exist in his world.  His writing provides an expansive array of works focused on performing and sharing the joy of magic. The Fantastic Kent Cummins will share the secrets of juggling in his first publication, Bungling Juggling along with how to find his podcast, Tales from the Fantastic Magic Center. If you're in Georgetown, Texas, be sure to reach out to Kent to view thousands of pieces of magic memorabilia at his Fantastic Magic Center.

Transcript

Lisa 0:00

Welcome to the How to Write a Book from A to Z podcast, hosted by me, Lisa Greinert, a writing newbie. Our focus is on new writers, those with The Story rattling around in their brain, but lack the insight, coaching, or experience to transfer ideas and vision into well constructed sentences and stories. However, if you consider yourself a writer, you are more than welcome to join us as well are you ready to hear from someone who has been writing for 76 years? You're going to hear how our guests grew up in an amazing family where literacy was of the utmost importance. Not only did he learn how to read at a very young age, he also had a family member that had a huge impact on him. So much so that it has provided him with a career in the world of magic. While a student at LSU in the 1960s, he published his very first book about juggling. And it was called Bungling Juggling and that was the start. So today you're going to enjoy the fantastic Kent Cummins. Kent's a prolific author and speaker and obviously entertainer. He's also written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications from Clowning Around to the Reader's Digest. He also had his first book published in the year 2000 with a lifelong friend and colleague with its first ISBN number. And it was called The Magic of Change. He is a contributor to Discover the Magic, which is a book featuring stories by 23 professional members of the NSA, the National Speakers Association of Austin. You can find many of Kent's specialty books at www. magicwordspress. com. Kent currently writes a monthly column called Marketing Magic for the Linking Ring. He also has a weekly column for the New Zealand Magic E zine. Kent also has a weekly podcast called Tales from the Fantastic Magic Center and it's in its second year of publication. So if you're ever around Georgetown, Texas be sure to reach out to Kent so you can see the thousands and thousands of pieces of magic memorabilia in his Fantastic Magic Center.

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hellO Kent Cummins, how are you today?

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Lisa. I'm doing great. So,

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just for all of you out there in the world this will be our second try at this. I am not only new to podcasting, but new to trying to figure out podcasting. So Kent has been gracious enough for us to try this again. So wish us luck as we move forward with learning more about Kent and his whole writing history. So. Kent, thank you very much for being here. I think we just get right into it and kind of start with how long have you been a writer,

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because I knew you were going to ask me that question. I looked through one of my mom's old scrapbooks and she has a painfully hand printed letter from me to my aunt Florence. And she says, she has a caption in the scrapbook that says Kent's first writing. So, that was age four.

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So that was 76 years.

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So, I've been writing for 76 years.

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76 years. Okay, well then I bet you have a lot to share with us. So in that writing, okay, you started at four. tell me how it led to where you are now.

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At age four, I hadn't even become a magician yet, but looking through my mom's old scrapbooks, I wrote a poem about the circus when I was in elementary school, and, you know, some things like that, my parents always encouraged me to write thank you notes to my grandparents and my uncles when they gave me, you know, money for my birthday and that sort of thing. So, it was, I guess we were a fairly literate family. I mean, we certainly did lots of reading. And

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and my

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and my parents did lots of correcting of my grammar.

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And so

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So I, I just, I grew up in, in a fun household, but a literary one, and my mom's brother Jack Kent, a very famous children's author and formerly nationally syndicated cartoonist I think he had over 70 books in print before he died, and translated into many languages and many different languages.

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countries.

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So that was my mom's brother and mom was a writer. I don't know that she ever got paid for writing or she certainly didn't ever write a book that was published or anything like that. But she was always very active, in writing clubs and, and her letters were just marvelous, you know, when, when she would write us a letter. In fact, in the later years of her life She wrote us a letter that didn't make sense. And we didn't live that close, but my brother lived closer. And I called my brother immediately and said, There's something wrong with Mom. And it turned out she had had a stroke.

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out she had had a stroke.

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from her writing. Yeah.

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her writing. From her writing, yeah. That's amazing. So then you obviously grew up around writing and reading. How much do you think the two play a part in each other?

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Oh, that I can't imagine being a writer if you're not a reader. I mean, what the heck? You know, because when you read a wide variety of stuff, you learn what you like. And everybody has a writing style, whether they know it or do it on purpose or not. And it seems to me that my writing style is based on what I enjoyed reading.

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reading. I mean,

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I mean, I enjoyed reading Sherlock Holmes stories and I enjoyed reading Rudyard Kipling and I enjoyed Louisa May Alcott. I mean, yes, I read Little Men because that's what boys are supposed to read, but hey, Little Women was a great story, too. And she had some other stories, because once I realized she was a great writer, and that would have been fourth and fifth grade when I was reading her stories, and Yes, I read the Hardy Boys, but yes, I read Nancy Drew. You know, it's just a case of reading things that are interesting and fun. And the reading that I liked

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was

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was storytelling, simple, not terribly convoluted. I can remember my grandmother, oh, my grandmother read me all of the Oz books, and there are dozens of them. Most people only know one, The Wizard of Oz.

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Oz. And many other

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Many other books that was one of the wonderful things I did with my dad's mom that grandmother. And

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time she tried to read

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one time she tried to read me, I think it was Treasure Island. And we went pages and pages and pages without any story. I mean, it was really slow getting started and I just fell asleep and told her let's don't bother anymore with that. And I never have gone back and read the rest of that. I mean, I know it's a great book. It's a great story, but it didn't intrigue me. The writing style didn't get to me.

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I appreciate what you're saying there is something magical about finding what you enjoy, and reading and being engrossed in it and, and literally being taken into this different world. Right. But the only way to find that out is by trying different genres. Right. And seeing which one really just affects you the most. Yeah. So you combined a love of magic. With your love of writing.

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Yes. And the love of writing was never a goal. I mean, I, I can't remember ever thinking, Oh, I want to write the great American novel or, Ooh, I hope I'm on the New York Times bestseller list. I didn't even know there was one until ridiculously recently. I mean, that's, you know, that's, I, I never thought about, wanting to write. That wasn't the point. The point was there were things to write. And so I did. And, In high school, I know I've got some clippings in my scrapbook from the, from the Baton Rouge High School, newspaper. And I think one of them might have been a poem, and one of them was probably a story about a football game or something. I haven't read them in a very long time. But I don't remember, I didn't remember I had written them until I was looking back through scrapbooks and stuff. It wasn't a big deal, it was just something I did. And in, in college at LSU. They had a magazine called Add One, and I thought, well that's nice, I'll write some articles for it. And so I did. And again, it wasn't, you know

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know

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didn't have to take any English classes at LSU, but I took creative writing. Because I thought, oh, you know, that sounds like fun, sounds like I can improve. Because writing is just something I did.

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just something I did. Sure. And, The co author of one of my books,

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Sure.

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got mad at me

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The co author of one of my books got mad at me because I was using big words. And he said, we have to write like fifth graders. And he says, I don't even know what some of the words mean in the parts that you write. but I grew up in a literate family. So, there's some big words that express an idea better than the simpler words. And so I'm proud of my writing style. It's not according to any books of how you're supposed to write. It's just the way I write. And it's funny to think about, really, because as much writing as I've done, until very recently, it wasn't a goal at all. It was just, it was just something I did. Fascinating. Even though you've been doing it all these years. Yep.

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I've done, until very I was your first published book? And,

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Berkey from the Fun and Magic Shop in San Antonio, Texas, wrote me a letter.

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friend

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younger, younger listeners, he did not send me an email.

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Berkey

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Was it in Cursive? No, he typed it.

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no, he typed it. Okay.

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He wrote me a letter saying, Hey Kent, I've got I've got a new printing press, an offset printing press, and I want to print some stuff. Can you write a book? And so I wrote a book, a booklet really called Bungling Juggling because I was a juggler and my, Brother, turned out, had watched me and learned how to juggle, and we had an act called The Bungling Jugglers. back then, there was almost nothing available to teach you how to juggle. I mean, obviously there's no YouTube or anything like that, but there were no books in the library on how to juggle. You know, there were, if you went to the bookstore, there were no books on how to juggle. If you went to the toy store or the athletic supply store, there were no juggling props. Jugglers were mostly either from circuses or from vaudeville. And they protected their secrets of how you juggle. And I joined the International Jugglers Association in 1955, I think. That's the year I learned to juggle. And Their newsletter was mimeographed, and the way you got an article in the newsletter was you typed up a mimeographed stencil. And so, each of the pages of the newsletter was typed by a different typewriter in a different format. It was a very interesting thing. And mostly it was old jugglers. saying, Oh, somebody wrote a book on juggling. People going to learn how to do it. This is terrible. They were worse than magicians about protecting their secrets.

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Which is interesting, because I would think magicians would have a lot more secrets.

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would jugglers were afraid that people would find out it's not as hard as it looks. And yes, the great jugglers do things that you'll never ever be able to learn to do. But basic juggling is It's really not that hard.

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Well, they would find out there at the time.

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And yes, but no, it wasn't so much how to juggle. I did find the few little books on juggling. but the books all told how to juggle and what my book bungling juggling did was tell people how to make juggling a fun performance Because I'm not really athletically inclined. I've never had any particular wonderful kinesthetic skills, but I learned to juggle and that meant I could do something most people didn't know how to do. And so that's what bungling and juggling was all about. Okay. Okay. So

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Okay, okay. So you don't really have a formula that you follow with writing. Is that my understanding?

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I get an idea that I want to write something. And so I sit down and I write it. And it used to be a big yellow legal pad and a number two pencil. And then it was a Royal typewriter and then it was an IBM Selectric.

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So since we're kind of talking about technology, do you have any thoughts on chat G B T

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I've played with it, I've written articles about it, as a matter of fact, and I let ChatGPT write a third of the article, so that people could see, the medium is the message, you know, let people see what, what ChatGPT can easily and quickly do, and my daughter and I both use ChatGPT, she's a social media and marketing coach, and what we use it for, more than anything, is

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what we use it for, more

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So if you want to write about, circuses, maybe I'd ask ChatGPT, what are the 10 things people are most interested in about circuses? And ChatGPT would go bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep, and give me some ideas. It's, it's like... Googling it. I mean, that's what I'd actually do, probably, is ask Google what are the top ten things people are asking about, about circuses.

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So you were actually using it more for the ideas instead of actually writing for you.

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The whole reason I write is to share my ideas. I don't have any particular interest in sharing random AI

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particular interest in

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I mean, you know, that, that...

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Which is what you would be doing. Exactly. Makes sense. And

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And I understand that there are situations where you're required to create things that are written, and yet it's not your ego, it's not that. Maybe some kind of a technical journal, you need a paragraph about water quality or something, and maybe that would be a good use of ChatGPT. But, for the writing that I do, I write for the fun of it, and as a way to share my ideas in ways that I hope will educate, entertain, and inspire other people. And I'm not going to get that if

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a lot of sense. Because, I mean, as we know, people are a little worried about... What

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ChatGBT

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and AI is going to do for the field of writing? I

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I don't think it's going to do anything.

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going

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that's not true. That's another tool. People were horrified when the Gutenberg Bible came out, when the printing press came out. I mean, that's, that's going to ruin everything. And the telephone is going to ruin everything. And the cell phones are going to ruin everything. Well, maybe they did. I don't

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going to ruin

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But every, you know, every new advancement, people don't understand it. But at some point, humans seem to figure out how to get value.

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That's so true. I love the way you put that. So as a new writer, do you have any suggestions or anything for me that you felt kind of helped you as you started writing Even though it started at four? No.

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We've already said it, read.

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Just read. Do you think reading is the

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I don't think it's about reading the books on how to write.

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to write. Really?

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Every book about how to write is written by somebody who has a writing style, who has a way of doing things. And it's interesting to see what other people's writing styles are, but you can get that from reading other people's books. And it's interesting to see what their process is, but that's not necessarily going to be your process. One of the things I hear all the time is you need to set aside a particular time and place every day where you do your writing. Well, it doesn't work for me at all. I'm ADHD. I'm doing different stuff every day. And occasionally the muse hits, you know, and I think, ah, I've got to sit down and write. And sometimes, hmm, I've got a column due in two days. I'll work on it tomorrow.

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I appreciate what you're saying because I have heard that a lot and it's like that is so not who I am in any way whatsoever. I have to have the feeling to write. I've got to want to write. And I have found, for me, what's been interesting with writing, it's like the more I write, the more I want to write.

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Yes.

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Which I thought was fascinating because I'm not a writer. But it's like all of a sudden, I don't know if it's because you have something inside of you that you know you want to get out. Or if it's truly that I'm really just enjoying the writing process.

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Yeah, and it's different for different people. There is nothing wrong with setting aside an hour every morning at a particular time in a particular place. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But that's not the way I do it. And I do a lot of writing that's published, you know. And there's so many different ways.

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I

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I was in charge of the Writer's Sig Special Interest Group for NSA Austin, that's National Speakers Association, not the other NSA. And we had a woman who came to our group for the first time, and we asked her to introduce herself, and she did, and said, you know, why are you here? And said, well, I hate writing! And we all backed up a little bit, you know, and she says, but Jesus told me I had to write a book. Okay, well, you don't argue with Jesus, you know and danged if she didn't write her book and Get it published and she had a book release party at her Southern Baptist Church And it was the most fun. I had that year. I think I mean it was just amazing but you know,

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Southern Baptist Church. And it was

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I Don't think that's good advice for new writers You know,

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know. It doesn't always turn out that

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find, find a favorite deity to carry you through. I mean, it's just, you know, everybody's got their own reason for writing. I mean, some people are required by their jobs to write, and that leads to sometimes some interesting writing. Yeah, that's an

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their jobs to put it. I think for me, I don't, yeah, I don't know if I would be writing if it weren't for the fact that I feel like I have something that I, that I want to share. Yes. I think that's the key. Is there something that I feel has, has happened in my life that I feel other people could benefit from?

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Exactly.

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But I, okay, so we're at the beginning, you know, I'm, I'm writing my book. And I, I also appreciate, there's so much, I, I feel overwhelmed sometimes because of the amount of information out there. And, and I did struggle with this at the beginning because I felt like all I was doing was reading how to books, how to. And I was just getting confused so I just literally set them aside and just wrote.

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And that is one universally understood secret of how to be a writer. Really? Just write.

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That is to write,

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And you'll see it from famous authors who write books about how to write, and you'll see it here, there, and talked about in funny interviews. yeah, the secret is to write.

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If you

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Know how to put words on a page. You know how to write. You may not know how to write a story. You may not know how to write an article or a biography, but you know how to write. You can write a letter to somebody. Most people, even if it's just an email, most people know how to write a letter to somebody, or even if

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use ChatGBT at this point. But, but, a

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But, but a text message. I mean, lots of teens in particular are writing to each other every day.

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they're short,

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Now, they're short. And they don't care a whole lot about the English, you know, rules. Right. But they're expressing their ideas because it matters to them. And they're doing it by writing.

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So along with that point because it comes with the grammar piece of, of even writing a text. So we go from writing, okay, which is where I am. So how did you go from writing, and I'm guessing you probably wrote it once and just kept editing yourself over and

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And there's another thing that the books will tell you. Don't edit while you're writing. Just let it flow. And yeah, I, I still edit a little bit when I'm writing. It's whatever works for you.

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right is

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that. thing that didn't sound right is driving you nuts and you can't keep going, then go back and edit it. But if it's not bothering you, then that's great advice. Sure. Keep writing. If you get into a flow, then just follow that flow, whatever it is. Don't think about what the rules are. Just follow the flow. And then once the flow, it comes down to a trickle, then Okay, what do I need to do? Oh, I need to type this. Oh, I need to run it through spellcheck. Oh, I need to re edit that whole first part. Oh, I need to reverse these two paragraphs. Sure. But to me, there is a flow.

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You hit the nail on the head because I do feel like, I feel like sometimes I can just go for hours and just write and write and write and write. And then I'll, I'll wait and I won't edit it. But then there's other times I'll start writing and something bugged me, just like you said. And I'm like, oh, it's just not right. And I'd have to go back and I'd do it. So again, you gotta do what's right for you.

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Exactly. And this big conversations about writer's block. Writer's block is in the same category as boredom. I don't understand it. I don't understand people that are bored. Life is so fascinating. There's so much you can't possibly do. A hundredth of what's available to you at any given moment. I can't imagine really being bored.

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I can't imagine

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And writer's block is the same way for me. I mean, if you've got a marker and a piece of paper, Write your name over and over again. That's something we probably all did in what middle school, you know See, how do I want my signature to look?

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It's the same way for girls, it was, well, if I like this guy, it would be my first name and their last name. Mrs. So and so. That's what we were doing.

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Okay, I didn't think about that one but I did think about all the different ways to write and my dad printed Like an architect. He wasn't an architect, but I mean he used that kind of printing rather than using cursive. And I liked it because it's easier to read. And so I started doing

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doing that.

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And my brother started doing that. And our, my son does that. And so that's a piece of our style as well. And we do it just because we got started and like doing it that way. Yeah. But we try different things.

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try different things. Sure. So if, is there anything, as a new writer, and the people that are listening, is there any, anything else that you feel like would be beneficial for us to know about, about the whole writing process?

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No.

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No. That's good to know.

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That's good to know! I mean, there's so many different approaches. So

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me ask you this. Okay, after you did all of your editing, did you go and find an editor? How, how do you, how did you do that? Often. Often. I do

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much different writing that I use different things and different... When Tom Britton and I co wrote our book, The Magic of Change, we hired a professional editor who also did our index in the back. And the book is so much better. because of having that professional editor. And the monthly column that I write for the Magic Magazine, once I'm finished with it, if I quote other people, then I'll send it to them for their comments. It's not exactly editing. Some do edit it. Some just say, yeah, that's fine. Some make a minor correction. But once it's ready to send, I ask my wife to read it.

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Some

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And she'll pick up stuff that Spellcheck doesn't pick up. She'll pick up things where, Kent, I don't like the way this makes you sound.

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you sound. You

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you're, you're a little too full of yourself here, or a lot too full of yourself here. And, somebody else looking at it, always helps. But I don't want people to correct my style. And, much of the, editing that I've had done, I look at, I appreciate, I think about what it means, and then decide. Whether I want to do that or not. I know I use too many exclamation points. Dang it. I actually

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you want them.

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I do.

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want

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I actually, I think in exclamation

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Well, me too. Thank you. I absolutely love them. There's never enough.

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But it doesn't mean that, that somebody pointing them out isn't a good idea.

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good

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But it doesn't mean I have to change them all necessarily. And again, the magazine I write for is called The Linking Ring. And it's the official organ of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. And so it goes all over the world to magicians and other entrepreneurial entertainers. And my column is called Marketing Magic. And it's 2, 000 words plus illustrations. And the one that I just finished is number 98, and it's once a month, so that tells you how long I've been doing it.

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early days

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in the early days of it, I would write my column, and then when the magazine came out, this is before it was available online. Now I can check it the first of the month before the magazine comes in the mail. But when the magazine came in the mail, I would read it.

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magazine came in

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And I didn't like it. They had taken out my ellipses and my exclamation points, and they had rephrased things that I was trying to be humorous and made them more...

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erudite. Mm

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And it read a little more like a college paper and a little less like a fun magician's magazine. And I contacted the editor, who is a friend. that's why he asked me to start writing. And I said, do you remember the old, Tops Magazine, actually it's called the New Tops Magazine, but it's an old magazine for magicians. He says, oh yeah, I love that magazine. Said, you remember Duke Stern and Senator Crandall and all the columnists? Yeah, yeah. You remember how each one is completely different and some of them were really off the wall? Yes. Said, you don't want that for your magazine? He says, what? I said, your editors are cleaning up my work.

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he checked, he said, I have told

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he checked. He said. I have told my editors to leave your work alone.

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bothering the heck out of him, huh? It was

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heck out of me. Oh, it was far more than that. I mean, they were changing the style. Oh, wow. Because it wasn't, it wasn't Oxford style. You know. And, but it's not that kind of magazine. If it were a college journal, maybe. And I've written for a college journal or two. And you write differently. If it's a kid's magazine, you write differently. Sure. Definitely. Yeah.

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So along that line, because I'm, I'm kind of doing that. I've had friends just kind of read some of it. Sure. Just to kind of make sure it flows and everything. Only, only some of it so far. Where do I find an editor that that is another thing.'cause I feel like that is obviously my next step. Where do you find editors?

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Well, we found ours because she was a lifelong friend and we happened to know her work. I would think somebody looking specifically for an editor ought to be involved with one of the writing groups. I found the writing groups very helpful. Not so much to me in helping me do my writing or sell my writing, whatever, because I've been doing that forever. But they... It put me in touch with a lot of different people, and if I find a different author who's writing similarly, I ask them, did you find an editor that you liked, and maybe they can connect me.

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met because of the

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We met because of the San Gabriel Writers League here in Georgetown, Texas. The Austin Writers Group is amazing. I've been involved with them over the years, for many, many years. Regardless of where you are, anywhere in the world, there's going to be a writing group.

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there's going

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Whether formal or informal, there's going to be a writing group and you can Google it and find out, you know, where it is. And find people that you're comfortable with and get to know them. And you can be accountability partners. Sometimes that's helpful when people need somebody to say, Hey, how are you coming on Chapter 3? And that sort of thing. Or if you don't need that just giving each, each other encouragement. Saying, Hey, I really loved that, what you did with that, you know, I mean, that's, that's helpful because writing is a very private and alone occupation.

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It is.

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I changed my life in 1986 when I became a full time magician. And. I went through a book called, What Color is Your Parachute? That supposedly was going to teach me how to write the perfect resume. What it actually does is encourage you to follow your dreams.

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follow your dreams. Oh!

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and do your, do your own work, you know. And so I thought, well, I love. Being a magician, but I don't want to be doing magic shows every day, every night, whatever. And I love teaching, but I don't want to be grading papers every night. And I love speaking, but I don't want to be on an airplane every week. And I love writing, but I don't want to be all by myself, all alone all week long for 40 hours a week. You know. And that's when I realized what I want is lots of different things at lots of different times. That, that's good for me. For most people it's better to focus on one or two things at a time. But it depends on who you are and what you know about yourself. But the idea that I would spend 40 hours a week writing all by myself

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that

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Yes! Oh, I mean, it was horrible. Look, that's one of those big words, anathema. I mean, I don't think...

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big one. What's it mean?

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Anathema? It means something more than just terrible. It means it's something awful, something that you would stay away from. It's anathema. It's something you don't want to have anything to do with. Anyway. Point is, you have to know yourself. Well, and

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and it sounds like you do because What you're talking about is not just a passion of writing, but your ability to notice all these things that you love so much and being able to form your life around all of these wonderful pieces sure. Which a lot of people don't know how to

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I'm a great believer in following your passion. And there are books written about it. Books called Follow Your Passion, The Money Will Follow, things like that. I mean, those are the kinds of titles. And people read them and say, Yeah, well, that'd be okay for other people, but not for me. And I find that sad because I think everybody can find a way to follow your passion. I did a presentation for a high school group yesterday. The Arts and Science Academy And what I was Telling these students, you're into the performing arts, It's not unlikely that you could write about acting or magic or juggling or singing or music or whatever it is that you love it's very likely that you can find a group of like minded people and enjoy it. You can have your passion throughout your life even if it isn't the primary thing you make your living doing. And certainly writing, I mean the number of writers that actually you know earn enough money a year to live on is very, very small.

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So you've got to just do it because of the love for it,

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we were talking about writing groups. And you find people that you're comfortable with. And then, get to know them, and... That's a great source of editors or, any kind of help

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Well speaking of, I am joining my first Critique Club on Friday. It's two other women that are also in the San Gabriel Writers League that are writing memoirs. So, I, I feel excited about the fact that I'm kind of feeling like now I've got enough on paper. I need people that know a little bit about writing to start looking at it and seeing if any of it makes any sense whatsoever, So, that's kind of where I'm at. Well, I appreciate everything that you have shared with us. It's just interesting to watch people's journey and where they started and how they started. And I especially like the fact that we all have to kind of find our own, our own way of doing so. And not have to follow a formula all the time. And that was something that I had a very difficult time with at the beginning.

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Well, and we were talking about, if you want to be a writer, what should you do? You know, what, what should you read? What should you learn about? I like writing courses. I chose to take creative writing in college and I enjoyed that and I think it helped me. I've taken classes from, Cider Spoon Stories, which is an Austin woman, Jessica, who taught some memoir classes, and I was interested in that. you always learn more things. Just keeping in mind that it's still primarily you. because I had this famous uncle who was a writer of children's books, I frequently in libraries would do programs about Jack Kent for the kids. And I would, read them a book, one of his books, and then, I'd ask them, if you were interested in being a famous writer like my uncle, what would you have to learn in school? And they'll say writing, you know, they'll say English and that sort of thing, which is all true. But then I remind them you also have to learn history, geography, psychology, everything because you have to have something to write about. The fact that you can write really well, it doesn't matter at all unless you have something important to write about. So the way to be a really good writer is to be aware of the world, to have all the experiences that you possibly can. And then find a way to share those. That's the power of, of good writing. Well, thank you so much for sharing. This is

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And helping me and hopefully helping a lot of other people that are excited about getting what we have inside out on paper or, you know, a computer. So, if anybody wanted to reach out to you, how would they get a hold of you?

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The best way for me is email, I was teaching classes at at the University of Texas through their informal classes program, and I encouraged my students to keep in touch with me, and this young man from India, said, Mr. Cummins, I would really like to stay in touch with you after these classes. What is the best way? And I said, well, the best way is to send me an email. He said, isn't that rather old fashioned? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

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than writing a letter in cursive.

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ha, ha. No, it's not old fashioned. An email puts everything in writing that's easy to access.

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to

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So, it seems to me The most convenient way of communication is email. It's how you and I stay in touch. And the easiest way is kent at

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C U M

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kentcummins. com. If you can spell my name right, you've got my email. It's K E N T C U M M I N S. There is no G in there. It's not Cummings.

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not Cummins. I'm sure you

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It's Kent Cummins. Yes, in fact, my daughter, when she was going to school made balloon animals as a clown, and she called herself No G the Clown. And people would ask, where'd the name come from? She says, there's no G in our name. It's pretty funny, really.

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the name It's really a cute idea,

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And I actually own kentcummings. com just because I had to because my name is misspelled so often. But I can't promise that'll get to me. And you haven't asked me the last question that you're supposed to ask me.

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What is my last question?

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last question is, is there anything else that you wanted to... Oh, okay. Is there

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Okay. Is there anything else you would like to share with our audience?

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Yes, because you didn't ask what my genre is. Oh, my

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because you didn't ask what this? So right now, I am in the middle of this amazing place that has, what, 10, 000? At least 10, 000 pieces of magic. And more

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And more than 10, 000 books and magazines on the subject of magic and the entrepreneurial arts.

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Yes.

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But, for 80 years, all of my writing was non fiction. I didn't write stories, I didn't write books, I didn't think about writing the great American novel. Everything is fine. And about six or eight weeks ago maybe, it hasn't been that long I was working with a friend of mine, going through some boxes full of paperwork and getting stuff sorted out, and she needed a, a water bottle, and so I went into the kitchen, and I opened the refrigerator door, and all of a sudden,

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all of

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my brain got attacked

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a thing

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by a thing that said, The Magnificent Mistow.

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but I

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I wanted to be like Houdini, but I also wanted to be like Sherlock Holmes. Heck, I even wanted to be like Dr. Doolittle.

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And I got her

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And I got her water, closed the door, grabbed a yellow legal pad and a Sharpie, wrote those words down, and then went back and we did our thing.

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and

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And that night after we went to bed, I wasn't falling asleep, so I went into the office and fired up the computer, wrote those things down,

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office and

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and kept writing.

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computer, wrote

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A story jumped into my head.

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A story jumped into my head. Out of the refrigerator. Apparently.

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don't know why, and

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that first

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first part that I just said is literally what was on the yellow legal pad and did not wind up being the opening to the story because nobody cares who the Magnificent Misto is until the story begins. And so I learned from a writing coach. I don't normally use a writing coach but I happen to have a niece. Who is a writing coach and she's very young and hey She's in a certified writing coach. So I sent her the story to see what she thought

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Convenient.

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She loved it. Of course. She's my niece

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she had

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But she had ideas

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My specialty is

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Because her specialty is fiction. My specialty is nonfiction And I did not even have a good story arc. I did not have the hero's journey in there. I did not have the character developed well enough. There are so many things that are just natural if you write fiction. because you don't necessarily use those in non

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don't know how many

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I don't know how many of my non fiction books have a hero's journey in them. You know, I mean it's just, it's a completely different style. And so. She was immensely helpful. It turns out that she really knew what, because she respected my writing.

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completely different style.

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I mean, she didn't tell me, oh no, you know, you need to change this and this and this. She just helped me put those elements that were needed into the story, and it worked so well that I went back with her again, and she helped me understand that what I really wanted was to make it a first person story, not a narrative. I had the narrative idea because, That's the way Dr. Watson wrote up Sherlock Holmes. You weren't seeing what was happening at the time. He was telling the story. And, but a ten year old little boy's not going to write like that. Ten year old little boys can say, and I got to school and this is what, you know. And so I completely rewrote the same story, but putting it in first person, which was hard.

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Because that's not really how you've been

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But it made the story so much better. And then I had a couple people I care about read it, and they gave me good feedback. And then I entered it in the San Gabriel Writer's League writing contest in the fiction category. I've never had an entry in the fiction category. And one of the things, I paid a little extra to get a critique of the first four pages. And that was a line by line critique, which told me, among other things, I had too many exclamation points.

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If that's the worst they find in your writing, I think that's pretty fabulous. Well,

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Well, and where she pointed it out, I agreed with her.

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Well, thank you for adding that. You're right. I don't know how I missed that. That's a very important question. Thank you so much for sharing all of this and you have his email address. So if you have any questions about writing or really literally anything having to do with magic, I would suggest that you contact Kent Cummins. Thank you so much for listening. We hope that some of this helps you in your writing and we look forward to our next time together. Thank you.